In our series of letters from African journalists, writer Elizabeth Ohene considers why bodies are not buried for months, sometimes years, in Ghana. This past week there was another one of those typically Ghanaian funeral stories in the news. The body of a chief who had died six years ago was still in the morgue as the family bickered over who should be designated as the "chief mourner". I was, as is usual with me, outraged. But the story did not attract much attention because we regularly leave dead bodies in the morgue for long periods to sort out the disputes that erupt after every death in this country. Our elaborate, expensive funerals and over-the-top dramatically carved caskets are well documented. In spite of the keen interest I have taken in trying to work out how funerals came to have such a hold on our society, there are some things that I still cannot understand after all these years. Fantasy coffins I have to keep on trying to find explanations....
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